I'm guessing his whole transfer unexpectedly to a FL school without telling your previous school, nor the school you were committed to, didn't work out all that well eh? Guess UF wasn't that interested afterall?

Well, good pick up for Purdue. Crazy high ceiling on that guy. He'll be good if Purdue has the OL coaching to help him reach it.

Purdue was actually his first offer, and he came very close to committing to Purdue before he committed to Michigan. In fact, I remember some concern then about the firmness of his Michigan commitment, since he seemed so thrilled with Purdue and then so thrilled with Michigan just a couple of days later.

There MUST be something weird going on here in terms of schools cooling on him or something for some reason or another. I can't think of a one reason why a kid would decommit from Michigan, move to a football camp of a high school in Florida, then commit to Purdue. Very weird.

I don't think it's crazy for schools to cool on a kid that (I think) was a high risk / high reward type of recruit, with a Michigan committment in-hand, that picks up and moves to Florida without telling his HS, or the school to which he's committed.

It certainly doesn't seem like he acheived whatever his objective was, which I'm assuming was an offer from a better (?) school than Michigan. If that's the case, then...whatevs, man, whatevs.

There isn't a better offer than UM. Its like winning $300M in the lottery and wondering if spending it on $300M of scratch offs is a good idea so you can make more. Only Denzel's scratch off says "Purdue".....thanks for playing.

Denzel Ward would then be Purdue's fifth commit for 2014, and their second three-star commit (QB David Blough is the other, I think).

As a refresher, including Michigan, Arizona State, Florida and Ohio State were in the mix at some point. This was written a few days ago regarding his visit to Purdue (LINK), and it also mentions Oklahoma, a visit he never made ultimately. He did have this to say about Purdue's coaches:

“I just learned how to be a leader out here on the field without it being a team,” he said. “I just tried to have my presence shown and learn a lot about what coach Bridge is going to be trying to run the next few years. I’m trying to learn how he wants his O-linemen to work. I think it went really well. I feel pretty comfortable with him.”

Rivalries aside, Purdue is a fine school. I'm not quite sure what Ward was thinking, or who had his ear, but I'm sure he will do well there. Of course, I also hope Michigan's D has a field day when they play Purdue.

This gives Purdue football fans, all 14 of them (which is still 5 more than Northwestern), a chance to bring out the snake oil comments, at least to some degree.

As for the rest of the ND, Indiana, Michigan, OSU, Illinois fans that attend Purdue, they're probably thinking "meh, alright, I guess I'm not mad about it," and then they're getting back to engineering or drinking a lot.

Not every college athlete wants to win the conference, Rose Bowls, and national championships in 2014-2018. Instead of being buried in the #1 recruiting class in the nation, isn't it more satisfying to being buried in the #75 class?

Wow, completely forgot about this kid. Guess that's what happens when you're putting together a monstrous recruiting class. Something tells me we'll be just fine without him.

Good luck to him, but Purdue? Really? It must have been the prospect of early playing time, because unless you like the Little Caesar's Bowl and playing in front of 15,000 uninterested, indifferent fans every Saturday, I don't see a draw for going to Purdue. Oh well. That's his choice.

...I'm assuming the coaches are still looking for someone. I won't pretend to be a recruiting expert, but that doesn't mean that a particular recruit would have an easy time making the 2-deep. We recruit lots of players who don't make the cut, and given the recent history of recruiting, and prospects for the future, I think it will take a very talented player to make it. Ward may have been that guy, but it's far from certain. Tackle may be a position of "need" at the moment, but "need" is a relative thing.

For a summer. I wonder if those guys made lots of promises that they could really raise his profile with top schools and get him many connections. I kinda got that vibe while I was there. Of course there is a price for all of those connections and exposure.

Danny Hope may not care, but for some reason, I am curious to see where Danny Hope ends up. For every coach climbing up the ladder, I guess there are ones falling down as well. I certainly don't see Hope getting a HC anytime soon at a BCS qualifying school, and his shots at his AD on his way out the door, probably isn't going to help him either:

He's never turned into the monster high level recruit many thought he would be. Seems schools like Florida and Oklahoma really cooled on him. Scout has him as the what 50th OT in this class? oh well.You could go to schools a lot worse then Purdue. Good luck to him.

Down voted for saying what exactly? I guess I offended some Denzel Ward fan here. Just pointing out the facts never talked down on the kid. he was supposed to be a top shelf recruit for 2014 that's why so many schools started showing interest in him very early, and obviously he got swayed by that interest and the snake oil that goes with it. That was basically the entire reason he moved to Florida was to get more exposure, raise his profile and be closer to Gainesville. Well it kind of blew up in his face since he never took that next step, and almost all the top schools who were starting to offer him eventually cooled off on him big time.